Old news - Olivier Jacque Retires?

06:32 22Jun07 RTRS-Motorcycling-Jacque announces retirement from MotoGP
LONDON, June 21 (Reuters) - Injured French rider Olivier
Jacque announced his retirement from MotoGP on Thursday after
being replaced at Kawasaki by Australian Anthony West.
The former 250cc world champion will remain as a team
development rider, however.
"I've crashed on several occasions this season, often with
severe injuries and right now I feel tired and physically
diminished," the 33-year-old said on the team Web site
(http://www.kawasaki-motogp).
"My body keeps telling me maybe it's time to move on and I
don't feel competitive enough to ride at the top level," he
added.
West, 25, will ride for Kawasaki for the rest of the season
after buying out his world supersport contract with Yamaha. He
tested for Kawasaki in Barcelona last week and will make his
debut for the team at this weekend's British Grand Prix.
((Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Clare Lovell London
Sports Desk; Reuters Messaging;
mailto:alan.baldwin.reuters.com@reuters.net; +44 207 542 7933))
Keywords: MOTORCYCLING/JACQUE

For Related News, Double Click on one of these codes:
[S] [PSC] [RNP] [DNP] [PSP] [EMK] [MOCY] [FR] [GB] [AU] [ASIA] [JP] [SPO] [EUROPE] [WEU] [LEN] [RTRS]

Friday, 22 June 2007 06:32:59
RTRS [nLA351154] {EN}
ENDS

Kawasaki Competition Manager
"I think maybe we expected too much of Olivier this season. Last year he did a fantastic job developing the Ninja ZX-RR that has proved so competitive this year but, in hindsight, expecting him to be able to continue the development process whilst also racing at this level was unrealistic. But we need someone to fulfil this development role, and Olivier is the ideal person to shoulder this responsibility. Once he has fully recovered from the injuries sustained in his Shanghai and Catalunya crashes, Olivier will revert to the role of test and development rider for Kawasaki, on a two-year contract, and we're confident we'll see our development back on track as a result.

Development BACK on Track ?.

Now now ..... JB thinks the Kwakas a reasonable bit of gear. Toss the frogs & the bike will WIN races.

I dont know why they had OJ racing anyway all he did on last years bike ride back to the pits every few laps and the race at china he was probably lost.

Good luck to westy and its good to have another aussie running around.